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Ann. Geophys., 24, 1759-1765, 2006
www.ann-geophys.net/24/1759/2006/
© European Geosciences Union 2006
Multiple Triangulation Analysis: another approach to determine the orientation of magnetic flux ropes
X.-Z. Zhou1, Q.-G. Zong2, Z. Y. Pu1, T. A. Fritz3, M. W. Dunlop4, Q. Q. Shi5, J. Wang1, and Y. Wei6
1Institute of Space Physics and Applied Technology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
2Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA 01854, USA
3Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
4Space Sciences Division, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, UK
5Center for Space Science and Applied Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China
6Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Abstract. Another approach (Multiple Triangulation Analysis, MTA) is
presented to determine the orientation of magnetic flux rope,
based on 4-point measurements. A 2-D flux rope model is used to
examine the accuracy of the MTA technique in a theoretical way.
It is found that the precision of the estimated orientation is
dependent on both the spacecraft separation and the constellation
path relative to the flux rope structure. However, the MTA error
range can be shown to be smaller than that of the traditional MVA
technique. As an application to real Cluster data, several flux
rope events on 26 January 2001 are analyzed using MTA, to obtain
their orientations. The results are compared with the ones
obtained by several other methods which also yield flux rope
orientation. The estimated axis orientations are shown to be
fairly close, suggesting the reliability of the MTA method.
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